WOMEN AS OBJECTS OF RAPE, BARTER AND
RELIGIOUS SACRIFICE.
Matrimony is, like all other human institutions, the result of evolution. In the dim past, after the ape-man had evolved to true man, it was not known at all. Most probably all the females were the common property of the males, the strongest of whom took hold of several women, leaving the rest to their inferior chums.
With the evolution of property rights these mates as well as their offspring came to be regarded as the absolute property of the husband and father, who could dispose of them at his pleasure by barter or otherwise. So it was among primitive men a hundred thousand years ago and so it is customary among aboriginal peoples to-day. At the death of the husband his rights generally go to the oldest son or to the person who becomes the head of the family.
Accordingly as girls are not masters of their own bodies, so the barter for women is customary among all aboriginal tribes. If a man sees a girl to his liking he bargains with the head of her family about the price. Among pastoral tribes it is generally paid in cattle; among hunters in skins or other objects of value.
Among the Zulu Kaffres the price for good-looking girls ranges from five to thirty cows. In Uganda it is three or four oxen; among the Samoyedes and Ostiaks of Siberia a number of reindeer; among the Sioux Indians two to twenty horses; among the Bedouins a number of camels; in Samoa pigs or canoes; among the Tatars sheep and several pounds of butter; among the Bongo twenty pounds of iron and twenty spear-heads; among other tribes a certain quantity of gold dust, beads, shells, and so on in endless variety. As soon as the price is paid the girl, without being asked her consent, is obliged to follow her new master.
As among aborigines women have no will of their own, they cannot object if their husbands exchange, trade or loan them to other men. So it is customary among many tribes that if persons of importance come visiting, the daughters or the wives of the host are assigned to comfort them over night. If among the inhabitants of the Fiji Islands men became tired of their "better halves," they killed and boiled them and arranged cannibal feasts in which all neighbors participated.
Aboriginal women also must gracefully assent to their husbands' taking several wives. Their number depends on the man's means. While poor men satisfy themselves with
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